Those suffering from food phobias have restricted diets varying in extreme from avoiding meat to only eating a handful of items. However, some food phobics and fussy eaters have a list of food so limited, it seriously affects their health and many have issues adding variety to their main diet.
We all have foods we can’t tolerate. Sometimes the taste, texture, origin or look of a food simply puts us off. Yet someone with extreme food phobia feels this way over a large variety of foods leaving precious little to nourish them.
Luckily, this type of eating disorder can be successfully treated. NLP and hypnosis treatments can help sufferers to add more variety and content to the limited range of what they deem, acceptable food.
Nutrition Studies and the Body’s Resilience
A controversial study with very interesting findings on diet and nourishment was carried out by Professor Werner Kollath at the University of Rostock. He fed animals a junk-food type diet of processed foodstuffs devoid of virtually all minerals apart from zinc, potassium phosphate and a little thiamine. Up until their thirties they managed on this nutritiously low diet and grew normally. However, a rapid deterioration followed after that.
He also discovered that if the animals were then fed healthy, mainly raw foods, their previous junk-food diet did not have a negative impact on their long-term health, even though nutritionally bereft. The power of a living being to heal and repair itself is immense and beyond comprehension.
Why and How do People Get Food Phobias – Client Case Studies
Many NLP and hypnotherapy practitioner’s typical clients are male, sometimes in their late teens, who realise they cannot go out with their friends for meals. Other’s are men in their late twenties or early thirties who suddenly become worried about the health implications of not eating well. Often, practitioners wonder if a client’s unconscious mind prompts them to do something at this age. Perhaps they realise they must change or, suffer the future implications if they do not eat a balanced diet.
Each food phobic or restricted eater has different reasons for their eating disorder. However, commonly, their problems start in childhood.
Many sufferers have childhood memories involving the decision to shun certain foods for varying reasons such as the taste, texture, smell or look of the food.
Another factor is power. The decision can be a means to exert their will and have a degree of control in their world. Many children will decide on a whim they no longer like tomatoes or peas this week and bananas and pears the next.
Emotional Challenges
One client refused to eat his mother’s food to punish her for barring his father from their home. He was angry that Dad was no longer welcome in the house. Their separation was disturbing for him and this was his way of expressing his emotions. By default, his actions bought him attention, quickly learning he could manipulate situations. Looking back, he realised his mother was living in guilt and would compensate through giving him treats.
Forced to Eat Certain Foods
One food phobic’s problems started in childhood, as many do. She now won’t eat meat because she was forced to as a child. Steak, kidney and liver were the worst. To this day, the sight and smell makes her heave, as does boiling pork. So at six years of age she became a vegetarian. Some of her family owned farms so her decision wasn’t well received. However, for her, this helped her decision because she’d made friends with many of the animals so eating them didn’t seem right.
Of course, the particular phobic reasons for her vegetarianism pose no problem nutritionally or socially.
Another client would only eat white foods. Chicken, potatoes (no skin!), pasta only or with ‘mushroom soup sauce’ with the mushrooms strained out, white bread and chips. Any type of crisps were allowed as was chocolate. However, he became addicted consuming around ten bars a day. He had no recollection of when, why or how long he’d been this way.
Treatments
Luckily, in order for those with this type of eating disorder to heal, it is not necessary to know details of how they became this way. The special techniques of NLP and hypnotherapy can help remedy food phobias, often in two to three sessions. Also there are hypnosis recordings which can help overcome the issue in the privacy and comfort of your own home.